Samsung loses top Spot to India's Micromax in its Home Market

Published on: 11th Feb 2015

Note -- this news article is more than a year old.

Micromax has remarkably ousted Samsung to become the first domestic vendor to take the top spot in the Indian smart phone market, the third largest in the world. This incredible performance is partly due to Micromax's continuing appeal to mobile phone users upgrading to smart phones.

Micromax's flagship line of products has also very effectively targeted the
US$150 to US$200 (INR9,000 to INR12,000) segment, with products such as the
Canvas Nitro and Canvas Hue. Addressing these important segments has helped it
take a 22% share of the total smart phone market in India, ahead of Samsung at
20%. Canalys' recently published estimates show that in Q4 2014 in India, 23%
of shipments were of devices priced under US$100 (INR6,000), while 41% were of
devices in the US$100 to US$200 bracket (INR6,000 to INR12,000).

Canalys Analyst Rushabh Doshi said, 'Canalys believes catering to local
market preferences will become increasingly important. Micromax has been quicker
than its competitors to improve the appeal of devices, for example, by including
a wide variety of local languages on its Unite phones. Lava, another domestic
vendor, has launched devices that cater to the preference for greater battery
life - in this case a couple of days. But vital to success is selling these
handsets at low price points to appeal to the bulging mid-level income market in
India.'

Overall, the Indian market experienced very strong annual growth of 90%, with
21.6 million units shipping in the quarter. The other major local vendors
continued to jostle for third and fourth places. The top four players in Q4 2014
in India by units shipped were Micromax, Samsung, Karbonn and Lava.